Multi-trillion VND programme to teach agriculture to rural workers

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) said it will soon submit to the government a 10 trillion VND programme on "Training rural labourers in agricultural skills in the period of 2011- 2020".

The programme, which is expected to be launched within this year, aims at creating a skilled labour force workers in rural areas, who will be capable of meeting requirements of a modern agriculture.

MARD has set a target to teach agriculture to about 300,000 rural workers across the country each year in the period of 2011-2020. This means that the percentage of trained rural workers will increase from 20 percent in 2011 to 50 percent by 2020.

Between 2011-2015, the focus will be on vocational training in the fields of cultivation, animal husbandry, afforestation, aquaculture and fishing, and agricultural services. In the remaining period, attention will be shifted to training in key areas of agriculture, and agricultural commodities production.

Earlier, the Prime Minister approved a project on vocational training for about 1 million rural workers each year to 2020, with 300,000 of them to learn agricultural skills.

After more than one year of implementation, the project has trained over 610,000 labourers in rural areas, 70 percent of them having found jobs./.